Week 72

Where oh where has June gone, oh where oh where can he be? It definitely doesn't feel like summer. It has been raining a lot here. And no, I'm not really trunky. Yet. Never say never. Mostly I just try not to think about it. It will be hard to say goodbye but when it is time to go home it is time to go home. I feel blessed that I lived in France for a year, so I'm more used to saying goodbyes like these.

Monday- It was rainy so we couldn't go biking. We ate GIANT strawberries and played ping pong with the elders and branch president for preparation day.

Tuesday- I have decided that the Lord is pretty kind. I'm quite weary. Sister Gallacher: "What are your hopes and dreams?" Sister Lindstrom: "To sleep." SG: "No, really..." SL: "Really." Ha ha, anyway, moral of the story is that the Lord is helping me to do His work and I am very grateful for that because as Joseph Smith was told, you won't have the physical strength. District Meeting was great. Elder Holdaway and I gave parting advice. I shared a lot of what President Dance shared when he left because I feel the same way too. I also added some of my own things- always study PMG, never suppress a generous thought, and bribe people with chocolate. :) (I didn't really say the last one). We had some yummy death log (the condensed milk, chocolate, crushed cookie dessert). My favorite thing that Elder Holdaway shared was a quote that went something like this: "Satan gets the bad ones through disobedience and the good ones with disappointment." I really liked that. We went to Sister Ruta J.'s and she fed us some of the best borsch I've had. She apologized though, because it is apparently impolite to feed guests soup. We were able to meet with Zane, Kristine, and their mom. We showed her the Resto film. Zane and Kristine think we should show it on TV. They are so funny as of late. They have HUGE plans to share the gospel with all the country folks.

Wednesday- We had a LONG lesson about enduring to the end. We barely endured the lesson. Zane and Kristine ended up confessing their latest sins (Kristine has been experimenting with doing and not doing things). I told them to stop. You wouldn't want your kids experimenting with narcotics to see how bad they really were, would you? We visited cute old Ausma and then went to visit less-active Lilita. We had a hoot and a half at her house. We were reading the talk by Carl B. Cook "It's Better to Look Up" and they translated his wife's name as Māsa Kuka (which means Sister Cake in Latvian). I started giggling and I lost it, as did everyone else. It is a great talk though, go read it! We had a neat lesson with LA Valdis in the evening. He has finally decided that he really does need to read every day to have the Spirit more in his life- hurray! I concur with his conclusion.

Thursday- We had a meeting with Valda (RC). She is doing okay since her mom died. She asked us to help clean the house but there really wasn't anything to clean. We helped the RS out and took a less-active grocery shopping. I have no idea how one person can eat 1.5 kilos of cucumber, but that is what they bought. It really blows my mind how much they make 10 lats go. We were very happy to eat our potato pancakes for lunch after a rather long morning of service. We had a lesson with RC Zane before sports about teaching tips and so SG forgot her shorts! We looked pretty silly jogging home with me in running clothes, and SG in running clothes and a skirt. We played floorball this week but everyone was a little off and we weren't all so competitive.

Friday- Mark your journals. This morning was the first morning I went out contacting without a jacket. We are still doing some of the experimental schedule which I love. It allows you to go out contacting at 8am instead of starting studies. We went into Jaunliepāja and it made me remember how ghetto Latvia can be and that it is indeed a third world country. There I said bye to LA Ena and we met a lady named Aina who is a potential investigator. A relative just died, so she was having a super hard time. It was neat to be able to testify to her and teach her how to pray and then pray with her. We met the greatest 83-year-old on the way to the Beldavi's. Her name was Sophia and she talked to us for a good 20 minutes telling us about her life. She used to milk cows (by hand! she told us) and would sing to them. When she sang they would all go in a straight line. She was so happy, positive, and her family was her joy in life. Raivo and I had fun goofing off in the lesson. SG wasn't too happy, but when you have a slap stick, you just have to play!

Saturday- We were blessed to be able to go to the 20 year Jubilee of the church in Latvia. Amazing! We took two mini buses up in the rain to the Imanta chapel. There we listened to several talks. Elder Lawrence told the members that they need to start doing missionary work themselves if they want a stake. The temple president of the Stokholm temple talked about how large the church is on both sides of the veil. Lena Bluma made an INCREDIBLE video about the church in Latvia that was probably at least 40-60 minutes. It was really quite indescribable to see. We are doing a great work here. The first baptism in Latvia was in 1992 and in May 1993 then Elder James E. Faust dedicated the land of Latvija for proselyting. He prophesied that there would be several stakes here. I definitely got all teary eyed and then Sarra and Ieva (4 & 6) started giving me hugs and playing with me. After the film we had pioneer line dancing and a photo exhibit about the different branches in Latvia- Riga 1 & 2, Imanta 1 & 2, Liepāja, Daugavpils, and the Jelgava group. About 220 people attended. My favorite part was the branch skits. Imanta's Latvian branch changed the words to church hymns and made a medley which was hilarious. We also had a birthday cake and a Jeopardy gave of the church history in Latvia. This game involved chocolate chip cookies and the game paper, scissors, rock. The bus ride home was pretty quite for me. Ieva took a bunch of pictures with my camera, and we played games and drew pictures. Santa was being a stinker at the party though. Everyone would ask, "How are you Santa?" "Bad." "Why?" "Because Sister Lindstrom is leaving." Oh jeez, I had so many missionaries come up and tell me. Her and Kristine have plans to kidnap me and stick me in a cupboard.

Sunday- What a nice sacrament meeting. We had missionaries that had served in Liepāja around 12-15 years ago come and bear their testimonies. It was really neat. One of them had a really great 7-year-old. Here are some excerpts from our conversation: "What? There are more boy missionaries then girl missionaries? Wow. And the boy missionaries are younger? When I grow up I want to be a missionary, a scientist, a mad scientist, or just a normal person. Do you think I could be a missionary AND a mad scientist?" I told him that he could, but that he probably wouldn't have time to do experiments. Someone's parents apparently need to explain a little more about missionaries, lol. I taught second hour, nothing special, and we kept the children from killing themselves in Primary in 3rd hour. We broke our fasts together after which is always nice. Santa bore a sweet testimony and got really choked up about missionaries. It is always good to know you made a difference in someone's life. I'm pretty sure me and Santa were buddies in the pre-existence. We are still working on getting an appointment with Kristaps, her son.

Love you lots,
See you soon!